In the first half of the 1580s, Seville, Spain, confronted a
series of potentially devastating crises. In three years, the city
faced a brush with deadly contagion, including the plague; the
billeting of troops in preparation for Philip II's invasion of
Portugal; crop failure and famine following drought and locust
infestation; an aborted uprising of the Moriscos (Christian
converts from Islam); bankruptcy of the municipal government; the
threat of pollution and contaminated water; and the disruption of
commerce with the Indies. While each of these problems would be
formidable on its own, when taken together, the crises threatened
Seville's social and economic order. In The Plague Files, Alexandra
Parma Cook and Noble David Cook reconstruct daily life during this
period in sixteenth-century Seville, exposing the difficult lives
of ordinary men, women, and children and shedding light on the
challenges municipal officials faced as they attempted to find
solutions to the public health emergencies that threatened the
city's residents.
Filling several gaps in the historiography of early modern
Spain, this volume offers a history of not only Seville's city
government but also the medical profession in Andalusia, from
practitioner nurses and barber surgeons (who were often the first
to encounter symptoms of plague) to well-trained university
physicians. All levels of society enter the picture -- from slaves
to the local aristocracy. Drawing on detailed records of city
council deliberations, private and public correspondence, reports
from physicians and apothecaries, and other primary sources, Cook
and Cook recount Seville's story in the words of the people who
lived it -- the city's governor, the female innkeepers charged with
reporting who recently died in their establishments, the physicians
who describe the plague victims' symptoms.
As Cook and Cook's detailed history makes clear, in spite of
numerous emergencies, Seville's bureaucracy functioned with
relative normality, providing basic services necessary for the
survival of its citizens. Their account of the travails of 1580s
Seville provides an indispensable resource for those studying early
modern Spain.
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